Poor people make a very poor business of it when they try to seem rich. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Everyone knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything cooly is to do it genteelly. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
People seem to have a great love for names. For to know a great many names seems to look like knowing a… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people - the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
People think that if a man has undergone any hardship, he should have a reward; but for my part, if I have done the hardest possible day's work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper comfortably -why, then I don't think I deserve any reward for my hard day's work -for am I not… — Herman Melville Copy Share
For the profit of travel: in the first place, you get rid of a few prejudices… The prejudiced against color finds several… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Civilization has not ever been the brother of equality. Freedom was born among the wild eyries in the mountains; and barbarous tribes… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
The so-called Transcendentalists are not the only people who deal in Transcendentals. On the contrary, we seem to see that the Utilitarians,--the… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Surrounded as we are by the wants and woes of our fellow-men, and yet given to follow our own pleasures, regardless of… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find… — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude.” — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be;… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“(On Ralph Waldo Emerson)I love all men who dive. Any fish can swim near the surface, but it takes a great whale to go down stairs five miles or more; and if he don't attain the bottom, why all the lead in Galena can't fashion the plummet that will. I'm not talking of Mr Emerson now -but of the whole… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the… — Herman Melville Copy Share
“Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment to him; and, in fine, makes this… — Herman Melville Copy Share
Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land. — Herman Melville Copy Share Image
“Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when-There she blows!-the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to… — Herman Melville Copy Share
